The Pressure Of Accountability

I just finished the first week with my team for Project 2020. I’ve genuinely enjoyed being their Scrum Master and it’s fascinating to see what issues are coming up.

My mentor Dr. Michael Hewitt-Gleeson ( who got his doctorate on selling under Dr. Edward DeBono) has a great story in his presentation on sales people.

He says it’s much easier for a salesperson to tell their manager they haven’t been able to speak to the client (and actively avoid doing so) to get a decision.

If they actually tell the Sales Manager they did not get the deal. They feel the pain (literal pain if their manager is like Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glennross) from the sales manager and the disappointment they feel of failure to close the deal.

So it’s much easier to keep the (false) hope of avoiding the client and hoping the deal is still alive.

It never is.

Michael jokes this is why movie theatres are open during the day. It’s for all the salespeople who are avoiding their clients.

I knew I’d have to be vigilant early in this process (which is not my natural state!) early on in this process to set the tone. The fish rots from the head and all that.

It will be easier for my solopreneurs to not report than submit in a daily standup of disappointment. This will of course defeat the purpose of the project.

By reporting on their daily issues, I can actually jump in right away to help them with their issue with a well placed question. If they can just accept the process of reporting in and realising they are not submitting below-par homework. We can really start to move forward.

I’m loving doing stand ups through Slack. The ability for my ScrumStyle team to report in their Timezone instead of someone drawing the short straw and having to stay up late or ridiculously early.

It’s early days – but so far so good

Comments

comments

Download my new book for free to discover how to make your first dollar online (even if you've failed every time you tried)